The first mainstream media reviews of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion have praised the upgrade as a "radical" departure that takes a "big leap" into a modern world of tablets and smartphones.

Apple released Mac OS X Lion early Wednesday on the Mac App Store, offering the 3.49GB download for $29.99. Billed as the "best version of OS X yet," Lion includes more than 250 new features, including many brought back to OS X from the iPad, such as full-screen apps; Launchpad, an iPad-like app launcher; and app resumes and autosaves.

The upgrade appears to have quickly gained traction. "People are already downloading like crazy," Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday.

Reviewers were unanimously enthusiastic about Lion, though they did find a few minor bugs and glitches during their tests. The journalists were also in agreement that Mac OS X 10.7 ushers the operating system into the post-PC iPad era.

The New York Times

Writing for the Times, David Pogue said Lion adheres to Apple's long-standing "shake things up" philosophy. "It follows an old Apple pattern of embracing whats cool and progressive, and ruthlessly jettisoning what it considers antiquated," he wrote.

For starters, Pogue views Lion's exclusive release on the Mac App Store as "radical." He found the download-only system to have its strengths, such as not having to deal with serial numbers or family plans and not having "discs to store and hunt down later." Though Apple plans to make the OS available on a USB thumb drive in August, the company is clearly pushing the Mac App Store as the preferred method.

"If the Lion upgrade is about any one thing, its about the iPad," he continued, noting that the iPad's "mega-hit" status came down to two factors: simplicity and the multitouch screen. "In Lion, Apple has gone as far as it can go to bring those factors to the Mac," Pogue wrote.

The reviewer found that, after adjusting to some of the changes, such as the switch to the iPad's style of inverted scrolling, "the iPadization of the Mac" does work. He did, however, have a few minor quibbles, such as having to manually open Launchpad, but otherwise found the Lion makeover "fluid and satisfying."

But, for Pogue, there's also bad news: "a lot of the promise is Apples wishful thinking." According to him, new features like full-screen mode and autosave "generally work only in Apple programs," while other companies' apps will need to be upgraded.

"The final good news, though, is that you can ignore all of this," he wrote. The new iPad-style features are optional on Lion. "Just this once, Apple isnt dictating the way you have to do things."

Pogue also highlighted several other "nips and tucks" that he found terrific, such as the new AirDrop file transfer process, thoughtful design advances in Apple's Mail application and the new Resume feature.

For all of Lion's plusses, the reviewer pointed out "some good reasons not to rush right away" to upgrade to Lion. For instance, the removal of Rosetta, which allows pre-Intel software to run on newer Macs, may affect some users, especially those who rely on Quicken software. Pogue also encountered "a few bugs" in Lion: "intermittent glitches with the Resume feature, MobileMe syncing alerts, missing menu bars, various Mail features and, on one very special day, dog-slow program opening." However, Apple said the problems were due to a "rare endless-loop iCal upgrade problem" unique to his laptop and promised a fix in an future update.

Pogue concluded that Lion is "classic Apple: innovative to some, gimmicky to others, big leaps forward, a few stumbles back." And, after third-party software makers update their applications to be Lion-compatible and Apple resolves the bugs, "Mac OS X 10.7 might be something even more exotic: a fast, powerful, good-looking, virus-free, thoroughly modern operating system."

Wall Street Journal

In his review for the Journal, Walt Mossberg called Lion a "giant step in the merger of the personal computer and post-PC devices like tablets and smartphones" and a "harbinger of things to come."

Mossberg said he liked the upgrade, after testing it on four Macs, as its new features "make computing easier and more reliable." He had no trouble upgrading, and compatibility with existing apps was "very good," though one app he used will require an update to work in Lion.

The reviewer saw just one crash during his testing. It occurred while using iTunes, but Apple has said that the new iTunes 10.4, which is optimized for Lion, should resolve the issue.

According to Mossberg, the downside to Lion is the "major adjustment" required even for veteran Mac users, though he notes that users of Apple's iPhones or iPads will have an easier time of it. "Just mastering all the new and altered touch-pad gesturesa couple of which are so unnatural I actually had to practice themwill take time," he said.

Tests for the review found Mac App Store download of Lion took under half an hour on a very fast connection and about an hour and a half on a typical one. After downloading, "the rest of the installation took about an hour."

Mossberg also recommended that users download the new Migration Assistant Update, as the older version of Apple's Migration Assistant failed to work when trying to transfer files and settings from a Mac with Snow Leopard to a new Mac with Lion pre-installed. The company also plans to offer a migration feature that will bring data and settings from a Windows PC to a Mac, but the Windows utility wasn't ready in time for the publication's review.

The bottom line for Mossberg is that Lion is a "big leap" that brings the Mac a "much more modern look and feel for a world of tablets and smartphones." For those willing to adjust, "its the best computer operating system out there," he concluded.

USA Today

USA Today's Edward Baig called Lion "a beautiful finger-friendly operating system." He found the new multitouch gestures baked into the OS to be "generally intuitive," though he noted that some users may experience "a bit of a learning curve."

Baig found the new Mission Control feature to be particularly useful for the "bird's-eye view" it offered of the system's currently running applications. He also highlighted the new Auto Save and Versions features as modern innovations that will eliminate old habits of having to remember to save files.

The reviewer did encounter some glitches, though, as Lion failed to install on an iMac, which Apple diagnosed as having a "failing hard drive." Also, a MacBook Air that he updated from Snow Leopard "frequently dropped a Wi-Fi connection after the machine was idle for a while." But, according to him, a few snags "are to be expected" during the transition.

"I recommend that most of the Mac faithful feed their computer to the Lions," Baig said, giving the upgrade 3 3/4 stars out of 4.

There are enough things like the gestures, full-screen apps, general speed, ability to resize the windows from any side/corner of a window that I already will be unwilling to go back to Snow Leopard. So far, thankfully, I have found no reason to do so.

I have been using Lion since it has been a developer release. I find that Lion is much better than Snow Leo. I am now using the Retail version of Lion and I have to say that I am very pleased and have been for some time.

Wait till you see whats next with 10.8. Lion.... it is a transitional OS X to the next big distro. Can you say 3D. Yes thats right. And integrated devices that allow you to control your mouse or desktop via iPad or iPhone. Networking capabilities that expand to the i device as a simple drop file communication standard. No more syncing via USB. Dual core A6 chips and iPads sharing screens with your desktop. Your desktop or TV will look just like your iPad. You can do presentations via wireless to a wifi TV or Desktop Mac. I have said enough. Lion rules and so does Apple.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

The first mainstream media reviews of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion have praised the upgrade as a "radical" departure that takes a "big leap" into a modern world of tablets and smartphones.

Apple released Mac OS X Lion early Wednesday on the Mac App Store, offering the 3.49GB download for $29.99. Billed as the "best version of OS X yet," Lion includes more than 250 new features, including many brought back to OS X from the iPad, such as full-screen apps; Launchpad, an iPad-like app launcher; and app resumes and autosaves.

The upgrade appears to have quickly gained traction. "People are already downloading like crazy," Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday.

Reviewers were unanimously enthusiastic about Lion, though they did find a few minor bugs and glitches during their tests. The journalists were also in agreement that Mac OS X 10.7 ushers the operating system into the post-PC iPad era.

The New York Times

Writing for the Times, David Pogue said Lion adheres to Apple's long-standing "shake things up" philosophy. "It follows an old Apple pattern of embracing whats cool and progressive, and ruthlessly jettisoning what it considers antiquated," he wrote.

For starters, Pogue views Lion's exclusive release on the Mac App Store as "radical." He found the download-only system to have its strengths, such as not having to deal with serial numbers or family plans and not having "discs to store and hunt down later." Though Apple plans to make the OS available on a USB thumb drive in August, the company is clearly pushing the Mac App Store as the preferred method.

"If the Lion upgrade is about any one thing, its about the iPad," he continued, noting that the iPad's "mega-hit" status came down to two factors: simplicity and the multitouch screen. "In Lion, Apple has gone as far as it can go to bring those factors to the Mac," Pogue wrote.

The reviewer found that, after adjusting to some of the changes, such as the switch to the iPad's style of inverted scrolling, "the iPadization of the Mac" does work. He did, however, have a few minor quibbles, such as having to manually open Launchpad, but otherwise found the Lion makeover "fluid and satisfying."

But, for Pogue, there's also bad news: "a lot of the promise is Apples wishful thinking." According to him, new features like full-screen mode and autosave "generally work only in Apple programs," while other companies' apps will need to be upgraded.

"The final good news, though, is that you can ignore all of this," he wrote. The new iPad-style features are optional on Lion. "Just this once, Apple isnt dictating the way you have to do things."

Pogue also highlighted several other "nips and tucks" that he found terrific, such as the new AirDrop file transfer process, thoughtful design advances in Apple's Mail application and the new Resume feature.

For all of Lion's plusses, the reviewer pointed out "some good reasons not to rush right away" to upgrade to Lion. For instance, the removal of Rosetta, which allows pre-Intel software to run on newer Macs, may affect some users, especially those who rely on Quicken software. Pogue also encountered "a few bugs" in Lion: "intermittent glitches with the Resume feature, MobileMe syncing alerts, missing menu bars, various Mail features and, on one very special day, dog-slow program opening." However, Apple said the problems were due to a "rare endless-loop iCal upgrade problem" unique to his laptop and promised a fix in an future update.

Pogue concluded that Lion is "classic Apple: innovative to some, gimmicky to others, big leaps forward, a few stumbles back." And, after third-party software makers update their applications to be Lion-compatible and Apple resolves the bugs, "Mac OS X 10.7 might be something even more exotic: a fast, powerful, good-looking, virus-free, thoroughly modern operating system."

Wall Street Journal

In his review for the Journal, Walt Mossberg called Lion a "giant step in the merger of the personal computer and post-PC devices like tablets and smartphones" and a "harbinger of things to come."

Mossberg said he liked the upgrade, after testing it on four Macs, as its new features "make computing easier and more reliable." He had no trouble upgrading, and compatibility with existing apps was "very good," though one app he used will require an update to work in Lion.

The reviewer saw just one crash during his testing. It occurred while using iTunes, but Apple has said that the new iTunes 10.4, which is optimized for Lion, should resolve the issue.

According to Mossberg, the downside to Lion is the "major adjustment" required even for veteran Mac users, though he notes that users of Apple's iPhones or iPads will have an easier time of it. "Just mastering all the new and altered touch-pad gesturesa couple of which are so unnatural I actually had to practice themwill take time," he said.

Tests for the review found Mac App Store download of Lion took under half an hour on a very fast connection and about an hour and a half on a typical one. After downloading, "the rest of the installation took about an hour."

Mossberg also recommended that users download the new Migration Assistant Update, as the older version of Apple's Migration Assistant failed to work when trying to transfer files and settings from a Mac with Snow Leopard to a new Mac with Lion pre-installed. The company also plans to offer a migration feature that will bring data and settings from a Windows PC to a Mac, but the Windows utility wasn't ready in time for the publication's review.

The bottom line for Mossberg is that Lion is a "big leap" that brings the Mac a "much more modern look and feel for a world of tablets and smartphones." For those willing to adjust, "its the best computer operating system out there," he concluded.

USA Today

USA Today's Edward Baig called Lion "a beautiful finger-friendly operating system." He found the new multitouch gestures baked into the OS to be "generally intuitive," though he noted that some users may experience "a bit of a learning curve."

Baig found the new Mission Control feature to be particularly useful for the "bird's-eye view" it offered of the system's currently running applications. He also highlighted the new Auto Save and Versions features as modern innovations that will eliminate old habits of having to remember to save files.

The reviewer did encounter some glitches, though, as Lion failed to install on an iMac, which Apple diagnosed as having a "failing hard drive." Also, a MacBook Air that he updated from Snow Leopard "frequently dropped a Wi-Fi connection after the machine was idle for a while." But, according to him, a few snags "are to be expected" during the transition.

"I recommend that most of the Mac faithful feed their computer to the Lions," Baig said, giving the upgrade 3 3/4 stars out of 4.

The first mainstream media reviews of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion have praised the upgrade as a "radical" departure that takes a "big leap" into a modern world of tablets and smartphones. ...

Not to be too much of a negative nelly, but Lion doesn't impress me very much so far.

It's slower than Snow Leopard for me by a noticeable amount and I think it's the UI animations that do it. Not that they actually slow things down because of the resources they use as in the old days, but waiting for the transitions to complete is adding all kinds of delays into my regular routine.

When you open a folder with a double-click, there is now a noticeable half-second before the animation starts. At least there is on my machine. Both together, means that now it takes something just over a second to open a folder when previously the whole process only took a half second.

Changing between desktops, (which used to be very smooth), is now jerky because the desktop appears first and then almost a full second later, the icons pop in. I find this most disconcerting and very distracting to the eye. Previously, the entire desktop moved as a static image, icons included.

This, on an 8 core Xeon with 14GB or RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 5770.

I can only hope that there is some kind of new video card driver in the wings that will return me to the fast lane, but so far Lion is annoyingly slow here.

I have been using Lion since it has been a developer release. I find that Lion is much better than Snow Leo. I am now using the Retail version of Lion and I have to say that I am very pleased and have been for some time.

Wait till you see whats next with 10.8. Lion.... it is a transitional OS X to the next big distro. Can you say 3D. Yes thats right. And integrated devices that allow you to control your mouse or desktop via iPad or iPhone. Networking capabilities that expand to the i device as a simple drop file communication standard. No more syncing via USB. Dual core A6 chips and iPads sharing screens with your desktop. Your desktop or TV will look just like your iPad. You can do presentations via wireless to a wifi TV or Desktop Mac. I have said enough. Lion rules and so does Apple.

Short of 3D, everything you listed as the future you can actually use today. Plenty of apps turn you iOS device into a mouse, several allow you to remotely access your desktop from an iOS device, and I've played around with an app that turns an iOS device into a second display.

You can also download a third-party AirPlay plugin for the Mac that let's you send video to a Mac... but with iCloud, the only use I see that having is for screen mirroring.

And iCloud is already killing USB syncing.

I suppose if you are meaning that soon Apple will integrate these features directly into the OS, then I'd agree. The current third-party solutions are often clunky.

Also, I doubt 10.8 is around the corner, as it looks like Apple plans to update 10.7 for quite a while. Plus, what cat comes after Lion? They'd need a new naming convention and a move to 11.x.

"For instance, the removal of Rosetta, which allows pre-Intel software to run on newer Macs, may affect some users, especially those who rely on Quicken software."

Screw Quicken. They obviously don't care about Mac Users. I have used it virtually since ver 1 but, switched to my bank's online bill pay which is free and works incredibly well. Should have canned Quicken long ago.

Oh goody [not!].
"a 'big leap' into iPad era" -- just what I didn't need, my Mac to be more like an iPad.

For me, with my computing needs for writing and entering keyboard text data in most of my computer interaction, an iPad analogy is not a selling point. So the articles' excited about how it makes my Mac more like an iPad or iPhone is , well, blechhhhhh.
And "Launchpad". Didn't we have something like that back in OS 8 and 9? (not to mention I already have both DragThing and OverFlow for my own "launchpads".)
I am underwhelmed.

I've leapt onto most of the other Mac OSX releases quickly over the years, but will be spending more time reading, testing, evaluating this one.

Thanks, Focher, for the Ars Technica link.

Here's a link to the TidBits front page which has a whole section of Lion article links http://db.tidbits.com/ on the top right.

Oh goody [not!].
"a 'big leap' into iPad era" -- just what I didn't need, my Mac to be more like an iPad.

For me, with my computing needs for writing and entering keyboard text data in most of my computer interaction, an iPad analogy is not a selling point. So the articles' excited about how it makes my Mac more like an iPad or iPhone is , well, blechhhhhh.
And "Launchpad". Didn't we have something like that back in OS 8 and 9? (not to mention I already have both DragThing and OverFlow for my own "launchpads".)
I am underwhelmed.

I've leapt onto most of the other Mac OSX releases quickly over the years, but will be spending more time reading, testing, evaluating this one.

Thanks, Focher, for the Ars Technica link.

Here's a link to the TidBits front page which has a whole section of Lion article links http://db.tidbits.com/ on the top right.

Just my thoughts. Now leaving curmudgeon mode.

With all due respect, what the hell could Lion have offered you an on OS level that would have made your computer needs comprised of 'writing and entering keyboard text data'?? Honest question. You bitch about features you don't plan on using, yet don't offer any type of wishlist or something you WOULD have wanted. I'd say the autosave and versioning would benefit you, but then again, your needs would probably have been met just as well in OS8. Also, you're suggesting Apple should never build in any features to its OS if there exists an approximation os said feature by any 3rd party.. quite a ridiculous sentiment. So what exactly could Lion have offered you, in specific features, so that you would have been impressed?

I haven't gotten to test out Lion yet because I'm on a small Island in an undisclosed foreign country and I'm on a slow 3g connection at the moment, but I will of course be downloading it as soon as I get back to civilization and my Wifi connection.

I can't stand mice anymore and I am for anything that leads to the further demise of all mice, trackballs and other primitive input methods. I am glad that there will be plenty of new gestures for me to test out with my Magic Trackpad. Multitouch is the future and I look forward to finally testing out Lion.

I read that there are some problems with Lion and certain software and third party hardware though, so I won't be installing it on all of my Macs to begin with.

Lion is a big deal for small screens. Using gestures to jump between apps is a huge productivity boost. The new user level features are not such a big deal if you have a 27" screen. No more windows for most apps is the right way to go. Lets see Microsoft try to copy that...

I does have several usability issues. e.g scrolling in reverse direction makes no sense for mouse users. If you scroll your mouse wheel down, the page should flow down. It's not an iPad, it's a desktop. It's just bad usability and just because Apple things we should all go down the "post-PC" road. Which makes sense, for non-PC devices, not for desktops.

Also the grey icons everywhere as first seen in iTunes is terrible, absolutely terrible. Colors help you find the right icon in no time, and now you really have to scan all objects. It's bad usability.

And iCal, have you seen that hideous leather design? Why? It's not that I feel more comforable "because it just feels like my leather agenda from the year 1815".

The OS also feels slightly more sluggish. I hope their next release goes beyond OSX, because it's getting old. A complete rewrite and simplification (like iOS) would be really ground-breaking.

I does have several usability issues. e.g scrolling in reverse direction makes no sense for mouse users. If you scroll your mouse wheel down, the page should flow down. It's not an iPad, it's a desktop. It's just bad usability and just because Apple things we should all go down the "post-PC" road. Which makes sense, for non-PC devices, not for desktops.

Also the grey icons everywhere as first seen in iTunes is terrible, absolutely terrible. Colors help you find the right icon in no time, and now you really have to scan all objects. It's bad usability.

And iCal, have you seen that hideous leather design? Why? It's not that I feel more comforable "because it just feels like my leather agenda from the year 1815".

The OS also feels slightly more sluggish. I hope their next release goes beyond OSX, because it's getting old. A complete rewrite and simplification (like iOS) would be really ground-breaking.

There's much to praise, but it's not a great upgrade IMO...

1. The scrolling direction can be put back if you don't like it
2. Don't you think Apple will be using more touch technology in their Mac OS X devices soon? What use would they be if the software wasn't ready for it?
3. "Slightly more sluggish" OS - doing more things takes more time. that's a short term problem and nothing says that future lion updates won't improve performance. I haven't noticed a difference.
4. iOS was not a complete rewrite. I would say for the amount of things that Mac OS X can do the performance is excellent. Snow Leopard brought a big performance boost and Lion is still a lot snappier than Leopard was.

Not to be too much of a negative nelly, but Lion doesn't impress me very much so far.

It's slower than Snow Leopard for me by a noticeable amount and I think it's the UI animations that do it. Not that they actually slow things down because of the resources they use as in the old days, but waiting for the transitions to complete is adding all kinds of delays into my regular routine.

When you open a folder with a double-click, there is now a noticeable half-second before the animation starts. At least there is on my machine. Both together, means that now it takes something just over a second to open a folder when previously the whole process only took a half second.

Changing between desktops, (which used to be very smooth), is now jerky because the desktop appears first and then almost a full second later, the icons pop in. I find this most disconcerting and very distracting to the eye. Previously, the entire desktop moved as a static image, icons included.

This, on an 8 core Xeon with 14GB or RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 5770.

I can only hope that there is some kind of new video card driver in the wings that will return me to the fast lane, but so far Lion is annoyingly slow here.

I have great doubt in your statements. I'm running Lion on last years 1.6Ghz 11.6" MBA and I have no speed problems whatsoever.

Based on what I've read, the upgrade seems pretty lackluster. However, at $29, it is a tempting offer. I'm somewhat concerned with the direction Apple is taking OS X; it seems they're only 1 step away from completely obscuring the file system and restricting software to only App store purchases. Great for grandma, but definitely not something I look forward to on a desktop OS.

Absolutely not. You can install Java. Just like before you can drag apps into the applications folder. Nothing new here. Just that App Store makes your life easier, a click and you've got the app downloaded to your folder, added to Launchpad, ready to go. Updates, you're covered. Don't have to find and manage serial numbers, etc.

God, what's with everyone's ridiculous panicking? Are you all trolls trying to give Lion a bad rep. As a developer I've been using it long enough and I'd never want to go back. It's bad enough having to touch a Windows laptop without two finger scroll!

The real problem is you are not particularly educated about the changes Lion brings. You are just one of the many who parrot comments about the UI changes and then leave it at that. Do you even know about File Coordination and how it brings stateful editing and versioning of documents ? Do you know anything about the new sandboxing built in? How about the memory management of apps?

All of those are significant additions to a desktop OS,but if you don't even know what was added in Lion it's hardly surprising you would comment that it isn't significant.

"For instance, the removal of Rosetta, which allows pre-Intel software to run on newer Macs, may affect some users, especially those who rely on Quicken software."

Screw Quicken. They obviously don't care about Mac Users. I have used it virtually since ver 1 but, switched to my bank's online bill pay which is free and works incredibly well. Should have canned Quicken long ago.

Couldn't agree more. I can't believe that people still rely on such pathetic old software produced by lazy tech companies who just can't shake their condescending 'Macs are for amateurs' worldview. These are totally uncool companies.

I am sure they must all still use Wordstar too.

Tim Cook is gay, believes in climate change, and cares deeply about racial equality. Deal with it (and please spare us if you can't).

And even if he did, I don't want a home screen of app icons always on my desktop. This is not an iOS device, and Apple happily recognizes that.

Yeah, at first I thought that was really stupid, but now that I think about it, it would really depend on how Apple implemented it. For example, I'd hate it if my desktop/homescreen constantly had launchpad up. BUT if Apple made it like dashboard in mission control, it could be pretty convenient.

The only issue I had was that it took Safari forever to open web pages for about the 1st 10 minutes after install. After that, everything seems just as snappy as SL did before it. I did notice one other glitch. With "three finger drag" turned on, I get a single hesitation when swiping back and forth between the pages of apps in Launchpad view. Upon turning it (three finger drag) off, it returns to smooth swiping. Otherwise, I'm very satisfied. And for $29.99, it's a no-brainer.

Launchpad / Mission Control
These work nice. In MC I removed Dashboard, and messed with the settings. I set both of these to a hot corner, and now they're even better.

Gestures
Trackpad gestures are better than Magic Mouse not just cause there are more, they just make a little more sense. I'm a personal fan of MM, but for those who have the wireless trackpad with their Macs, you will have a better time.

AutoSave / Resume
This is just fantastic to have on the desktop. Version is pretty damn cool. When you are working with a file in an app, you get the same expectation you would get on your iPad, which is when you launch the app, everything is just as you left.

Windows
The maximizing animation is fluid, but it's too animated in my opinion. I wish my app would quickly fade and reappear in full screen mode, now that would be awesome, but oh well. Speaking of Full Screen, browsing the iTunes Store with full window mode, and and full screen mode together is pretty dam cool. Scrollbars? I wish they'd be a bitter wider. Screen sizing from any side of a window? FINALLY!!

New App Looks
New Mail is pretty sleek. I did encounter a small bug where I added an account with flagged emails, then removed the account, and the flag counter still showed a value. A quick restart of Mail refreshed everything correctly. iCal, I'm not sure about the orange leather. It's an okay look, but atleast the new functionality they've added is worth having.

I was about to pull the trigger last night, but then I realized that I'm running Word v.x! As I'm the midst of a post-grad class now, I need to buy Office 2011 first...which I've been planning to do anyway.

The old version was...uh...acquired from a friend many years ago. When 2004 and 2008 came out, I played with the trials and concluded I hated them (for one thing, they deliberately didn't include the ribbon interface on 2008...which is the one thing I've liked about M$ software on a PC in the last decade). '11 looks much improved, and I need to be able to open and work with .docx files.

So, it looks like my upgrade will be about $130 in total, not $29.99.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

is the lack of backwards compatibility - with all this computing power, would it REALLY be that difficult to support older apps? Bring back Rosetta (I'm sure SOMEBODY will), and make the Power PC era apps useful again. Very Micro****-like for Apple to have done this.

Aside from that, so far I LOVE Lion! Wish that wi-fi booted a little faster - that's the ONLY thing that has remained as slow as it was in Snow Leopard.

Nice one, Apple! Fix those problems I've listed, and you'll have a truly GREAT OS!

All those changes could have been done with a simple update, I don't it required a new OS.
And what up with inverting the mouse wheel scrolling. I am not all that impressed yet.
So it you haven't upgraded yet, don't waste your money, wait until they put out something more worth while.

Sorry, tried Lion and was thoroughly disappointed. To me this is Apple's Vista. I don't share their personal computing vision either, do I'm staying with SL until my hardware is too outdated. At that point it's back to square one, and most likely Apple will not be one of the contenders for my next upgrade cycle.